


I'm an ordinary guy

by silver_and_exact



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Anxiety, Asexual Character, Asexual!Gregg, Beards (Relationships), Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual!Holden, Closeted Character, Communication, Enemies to Friends, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gregg POV, Gregg doesn't know Wendy is gay, Gregg is trying his best, Headcanon, Holden Ford is a disaster, I just really love Gregg okay, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Other, Panic Attacks, Pining, Sorry Not Sorry, Talking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_and_exact/pseuds/silver_and_exact
Summary: Gregg has a conversation with Holden in the parking lot about the other agent's possible feelings for a certain coworker of theirs.  It is wholesome af.  Could be set any time after season 1, probably.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	I'm an ordinary guy

“Hey Holden, when you were interviewing Kemper, did you ever—” Gregg began, looking over at Holden Ford’s desk, only to pause and lose his train of thought entirely. 

The other agent was clearly not paying attention to him, hadn’t noticed that he’d spoken at all. His face was unguarded and unhappy, and he was looking at Bill Tench. The recipient of Holden’s stare was also plainly oblivious, peering doggedly through his reading glasses at a mountain of files and paperwork. He had paused to light a cigarette, and Holden’s gaze fixed to the older agent’s hands, then his mouth, and he actually _sighed._

 _Oh_. Interesting.

* * *

Gregg lingered at the office for far longer than was strictly necessary after the revelation. Holden was showing no signs of leaving, flipping distractedly through the same handful of crime scene photos again and again. Bill had completed whatever case notes he’d been working on and headed out over an hour ago, throwing an offhand “see ya, kid,” Gregg’s way. He must be angry with Holden again. They were always volatile, always rendered incommunicado over some mysterious slight or disagreement, Ford needling at Tench until the older agent lost his temper and said something unkind, Tench dismissing Holden’s theories as frivolous almost instantaneously, without even bothering to explain why. 

Gregg sometimes retreated to Wendy’s office when one of these interpersonal flare-ups became too much to work around, and lately the two of them had taken to discussing the various observations they’d gathered regarding their perennially-feuding coworkers over tea. It was something of a lower-stakes profiling habit they’d gotten into, and a welcome (if gossipy) distraction from the usual topic of murders and sex crimes. Gregg liked Wendy a lot. She was calm, and analytical, and incredibly smart. And, unlike the other BSU members, she didn’t seem to think he was a total bastard for ratting out Ford to the OPR. Gregg wasn’t sure that he’d be discussing this particular development with Dr. Carr, though, even if he’d been privately theorizing that Bill and Holden’s nonstop sniping was some kind of warped, unhealthy flirting for a while now.

Finally, Holden gathered his things and stood to leave. Gregg waited for a moment before doing the same, trying not to look like he was following him, though he suspected he was doing a pretty poor job. He was too keyed up over the conversation he wanted to have. He tailed the other agent to the parking lot, but was at a loss as to how to actually broach the intended topic. Ford extracted his car keys, unlocked the driver’s side door, and was about to render Gregg’s lack-of-plan completely abortive by getting in his vehicle and leaving.

“Holden—do you have a minute?” Gregg said quickly. 

“That depends,” the man said, turning from his car and fixing him with a look that radiated disinterest and a faint distaste, “will you stop _following me_ , then, or is this going to extend to the road as well? You’re supposed to be an FBI agent, jesus, why aren’t you better at this?”

Gregg fumbled with his words, and to his horror, he felt a blush creeping across his cheeks. He _was_ doing a monumentally shitty job. Maybe he didn’t deserve to be on the team. Maybe the whisperings he frequently overheard at Quantico were true, and he was only here as a favor to his father. He forged ahead.

“Just—I wanted to say—you were, uh, looking at Bill earlier.”

Holden froze, face visibly draining of color. It was rapidly becoming the opposite of Gregg’s face.

"I know that you're... that you have feel—"

"Fuck you," hissed Holden sharply, pivoting and forcefully unlocking his car door, swinging it open with such fury that the hinges audibly complained, throwing his briefcase onto the passenger seat. Greg frowned. This wasn’t working at all. Oh my god, he sounded like he was trying to _blackmail_ him. 

"It's not—I don't—listen, Holden, I don't have a wife."

"What," Ford said, not a question, a statement. His thought process was plain—Gregg had a wife. Gregg talked about his wife. It would be incredibly fucking stupid of him to fabricate an entire person to the FBI. They would have to _know_ , right? 

“No, I mean—” the agent stammered, reddening further, “we’re married. I’m married. I mean, she has a girlfriend.” 

The parking lot was suddenly engulfed in a silence so complete that Gregg half-suspected a tumbleweed would pass by. The sun was setting, their shadows tense and fixed in place.

“Don’t you… go to church, or whatever?” Holden finally asked, bewildered.

“Every Sunday,” said Gregg, unphased by the line of questioning. 

“And that doesn’t seem… I don’t know, incongruous to you?”

“No. My faith is very important to me,” he explained serenely. Holden rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and leaning against his car.

“Are you in an… open relationship? Do you see other people?”

“No, why would I see other people?” Gregg asked, confused.

“Gregg,” Holden said slowly, “why are you married to a lesbian?”

He shrugged.

“She’s my best friend.”

“Okay.”

“What I mean is, we’ve been best friends since we were kids,” Gregg explained hurriedly, before he could take it back. He didn’t tell people about this. There was a _reason_ he didn’t tell people about this. It wasn't _safe._

“Her family… like you said, we go to church, my family goes to church, and her family goes to church, and they wouldn’t be happy about… her girlfriend, and all that. For as long as I can remember, everyone was always making comments about how great we were together, even when we were kids. So, we got married.”

Ford looked at him skeptically.

“And you’re… happy with this?”

“I’m not very interested in having, you know, a wife. So yeah. I am.”

“Are you—gay?”

“I don’t think so,” Gregg said, frowning. “I’m not really interested in that either.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I just wanted to—so that you'd—I’m not going to tell anyone about you and Bill. Okay?”

“There’s no ‘me and Bill,’ Gregg,” the other agent exhaled ruefully, apparently resigned to the topic.

“Really? You mean you’ve never even… said anything to him?”

“Of course I haven’t, _Gregg_. For fuck’s sake. I kind of like being employed.”

Gregg was slightly baffled by this information. When he’d noticed Holden gazing wistfully at Bill, and Bill ignoring Holden, he thought that maybe the younger man had made an unsuccessful pass at him. Also, he wished his name didn’t sound so damned awful coming out of the other agent’s mouth. Like the second "g" had a pronunciation, or an inflection, and it said "you're as unnecessary as I am."

“But why is he always so mad at you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m an asshole, maybe because he thinks my panic attacks are bullshit, that he’s been through the same and worse, and if anybody’s having panic attacks, it should be him. Fuck, maybe he thinks I have a thing for him. I don’t _know_.” 

“You should talk to him,” Gregg said softly, but resolutely. 

“Again, I’d prefer to keep my job, if it’s all the same to you. Not that you haven’t tried to screw me on that front.”

“I’m sorry,” said Gregg, and he meant it. He hadn’t wanted the BSU to start slipping onto a course of unethical conduct, didn’t want it to become the norm to cover stuff up, and he still believed that he’d done the right thing. But maybe he should’ve talked to Holden about it first, warned him about what he was going to do before he did it. Maybe he was a little bit of a coward. 

“I’m sorry, that was out of line,” Holden sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“You were just doing what you thought was right. Hell, you were doing what _was_ right.”

Gregg hummed in somewhat doubtful assent, returning to the topic of Bill.

“I didn’t mean—you don’t have to talk to him about... this. You could just ask why he’s so angry with you all the time. It’s not fair, him ignoring you like he was today. You were at _work._ ”

The other agent let out a sharp breath and shook his head.

“It makes sense that other people would notice, but fuck. I hate it.”

Holden looked exhausted. Gregg noticed that he had small but obvious dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t had a solid night’s sleep in a while. His usually-immaculate suit was slightly less perfect today, the knot on his tie a bit crooked.

“Listen, do you want to go get a drink somewhere? You can tell me more about your wife,” Ford offered, gesturing toward his car.

Gregg smiled.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Burning Down the House by Talking Heads, a very Mindhunter kind of song - "It was once upon a place / sometimes I listen to myself / Gonna come in first place / People on their way to work / and baby what did you except / Gonna burst into flame" etc. etc.
> 
> Okay, so I kind of fucking love Gregg and all I want from season 3 is for him to do more interviews with Wendy, find out she's gay, and be totally, surprisingly cool about it and become her bestie. I just want them all to be friends, man. LGBTQIA+ friends.
> 
> ALSO I am terrified that season 3 is going to feature depressed, divorced Bill Tench making a pass at Dr. Carr and finding out she's a lesbian and like freaking out about it, possibly outing her. I can feel it, the wheels are in motion. Damaged dude, woman listening to his problems, him taking it the wrong way... PLEASE GOD NO. 
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated :) Thanks for reading this self-indulgent fluff. I would not be averse to shipping Holden with my AU asexual Gregg, also, lol - perhaps he is not aromantic...


End file.
